Page 23 of Bared Betrayal
“You know your safe word,” he urges.
“Yes, sir.” But I’m nowhere close to using it. I want more. I want so much more. I want to keep feeling the life burst from where the cane hits my skin. I’m alive. Breathing. Feeling. The lashes make me feel the splinters underneath my nails, the open wounds on my knees, the gaping cuts in my skin. My burning flesh reminds me that I didn’t die in that prison cell. I didn’t rot there like he said I would.
I am…alive.
Flashes of darkness and flickering lights. Images of a monster. The sound of screams. The stench of blood. It’s everywhere. But I’m not scared. There’s no fear because somewhere there’s a presence that’s taking the place of the darkness.
Him.
Tears roll down my cheeks.
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes, and my masked stranger is carrying me across the room, gently placing me on the bed. The silk sheets feel comforting against my stinging skin, and he’s brushing the hair from my face as he slips on top of me. I let out a breath at the exquisite feel of his weight as he settles between my legs. “You did good, baby girl. You’ve earned the privilege of experiencing my cock.” He moves, and I crane my neck as his cock enters me with a slow, deep thrust. I’m melting beneath him, arching my back off the sheets as he fills me completely. His movements are slow and deliberate like he wants me to relish them while my body sings for him, an enchanting melody that stems from the lashes he inflicted. The pain that sears my blood.
Faster, his rhythm picks up speed, his thrusts forcing his cock deeper inside me, my hips rising to meet his. I feel everything. Every inch of him. All the heat. The pleasure. It’s all rolling together, building and building, his hands gripping my waist tightly as he pumps into me. This is ecstasy. It’s rapture. It’s fucking oblivion as his leisurely thrusts turn into desperate fucking.
Harder.
Deeper.
Faster.
“Come for me.” His voice is low, strained, and he grabs my knee, forcing it up between us, his cock inching in even farther with an indescribable pressure.
“Hurt me, sir,” I beg breathlessly, and he doesn’t hesitate. His hand is around my throat, squeezing hard, his fingers biting into my skin. The sound of his hips slapping against mine fills the room, the sheets bunching up beneath me.
I’m gasping, and he squeezes even tighter until no more air reaches my lungs. “You better fucking come,” he demands. “Cream my cock with that slick fucking cunt.”
Pleasure rips through my body, every sensation intensifying until I scream from his choking grip. It’s like he’s tearing me apart and putting me back together again, only to have me shatter beneath him.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful when you come. Jesus,” he curses, the veins in his neck throbbing from exertion as he fucks me with grueling thrusts, his cock slick inside me from how I came around him.
My shoulders lift off the mattress as he slides an arm underneath me, pushing me impossibly hard against his chest, his cock jerking inside me as he comes, and we both collapse.
I can’t catch my breath, and by the sound of his labored breathing, neither can he. For the longest time, we just lie there in silence, not saying a word. My thoughts are racing. My heart is pounding, and my body is exhausted.
He lifts himself and hovers over me, staring at me from behind his mask. “Where did you come from, little lamb?”
Hell. I came straight from hell.
Seven
KALLIE
I haven’t beenable to stop painting since the night at Myth. It’s like my creativity switch was flipped to the highest setting. The paint is practically throwing itself on the canvas. Reds. All bright, beautiful, deep, sensual reds. I see everything in red. Red like the tufted couch in the room where pain and pleasure mingled under his firm hand, the utter torment of every day numbed.
The silence. It’s beautiful.
I feel free. Free from the death that had a stranglehold on my life.
He gave it to me. My stranger behind the mask. The man who gave me pain so I could experience pleasure without feeling dead inside.
“Wow, that painting is like nothing you’ve ever done before.” Sebastian leans against the doorframe, his arms crossed in front of his muscular chest. “This wedding must be bringing out a new side of you, artistically.” He tilts his head and assesses the canvas.
I inhale deeply, shifting from one leg to another, trying to breathe. I’m overwhelmed with guilt. It attacks me like thousands of little mosquitoes. I want to beat it back, slap it away, but it doesn’t move. It’s like he can see everything I experienced at Myth playing out on the canvas. The canvases have been coming to life faster than I can paint them, but so have I. I feel more alive than I ever have. After my experience at Myth, my innermost thoughts and feelings seem to make sense.
I didn’t think I could go through with it, afraid the past might take control and break me down for good. But it wasn’t like that at all. The entire time, I knew I had the choice. I could have said no whenever I wanted, and it would have stopped. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to say no. The pain was too delicious. Freeing. The decadence of the cane on my skin. The way he hurt me and soothed me, and fucking bewitched me was mind-blowing. I’m still reeling, and it’s been days. And now I find myself wanting more. More pain. More pleasure. More of being submissive. More of being dominated. More of finally feeling alive.
